It all started with a blue checkmark. Now Meta wants to charge you for the privilege of watching someone's Story without leaving a trace.
Welcome to Instagram Plus, Meta's quietly ambitious new subscription tier, currently being tested at prices hovering between $1 and $2.20 per month. It's still early days, and Meta is tight-lipped about timelines and full rollout plans, but the direction of travel is very clear.
The bundle is distinctly Story-heavy. Subscribers can extend their Stories beyond the 24-hour limit for an additional day, see how many times people have rewatched their content, "spotlight" a Story once a week to push it to the front of followers' queues, and create multiple custom audience lists beyond the existing Close Friends option. There's also a Superlike, an animated reaction to someone else's Story, and a search function for the viewer list.
And then there's the feature already generating most of the chatter: the ability to view someone's Story without appearing as a viewer. Ghost mode, essentially.
Snapchat launched Snapchat+ in 2022, while Meta's own Meta Verified program followed in early 2023 with a price point around $15 per month. Instagram Plus, by contrast, is priced far more accessibly. At $1–$2 per month, it feels less like a commitment and more like a casual experiment, especially with a free trial on offer, lowering the barrier enough that subscription fatigue becomes less of an obstacle.
Is Instagram Plus Meta Verified's more approachable younger sibling, or is it something subtly different? Meta Verified was explicitly pitched to creators and businesses, offering verification, impersonation protection, and account support.
Instagram Plus, according to Meta, is designed for everyday users. In practice, however, the features seem aimed squarely at people who are already thinking like creators, even if they don't have that official title.